1
00:00:02,360 --> 00:00:05,320
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

2
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:10,600
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeartRadio. My guest today is one of the

3
00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:15,920
Speaker 1: most renowned executives in the history of American broadcast journalism.

4
00:00:16,560 --> 00:00:21,000
Speaker 1: Neil Shapiro is the president and CEO of the public

5
00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:27,040
Speaker 1: television organization WNET. With ten public media channels and one

6
00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:32,479
Speaker 1: radio station, w NEET reaches nearly ten million viewers across

7
00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:37,720
Speaker 1: the Tri state area. Prior to joining WNET, Shapiro served

8
00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:41,920
Speaker 1: as the president of NBC News, where he oversaw MSNBC

9
00:00:42,440 --> 00:00:48,000
Speaker 1: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, and Dateline.

10
00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:52,839
Speaker 1: Shapiro also worked at ABC News for thirteen years and

11
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:57,200
Speaker 1: another eight years as the executive producer of Dateline, the

12
00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:02,640
Speaker 1: show he inherited in Crisis. During his tenure at Dateline,

13
00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:06,959
Speaker 1: he would transform the show into a primetime staple, eventually

14
00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:10,600
Speaker 1: expanding it to five nights a week. Over the course

15
00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:14,479
Speaker 1: of his career, Neil Shapiro has won thirty two Emmy

16
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:19,440
Speaker 1: Awards and thirty one Edward R. Murrow Awards. As the

17
00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:23,800
Speaker 1: current Trump administration moved to dismantle the Corporation for Public

18
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:28,600
Speaker 1: Broadcasting and eliminate federal funding for public television. I wanted

19
00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:32,039
Speaker 1: to understand what this means for w NET and whether

20
00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:36,280
Speaker 1: public broadcasting can survive without government supports.

21
00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:39,280
Speaker 2: The basic way to think about is this. Most PBS

22
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:42,000
Speaker 2: stations are all independently owned. Most are owned by the community,

23
00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:45,040
Speaker 2: summer owned by university. They're part of the PBS, which

24
00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:48,560
Speaker 2: the public broadcasting service, not even the public broadcasting system.

25
00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:49,320
Speaker 1: That's part of the.

26
00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:51,440
Speaker 2: Charm and the dysfunction of it. So we're not we

27
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:54,280
Speaker 2: all make our own decisions or we collectively make decisions.

28
00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:55,360
Speaker 1: Same with NPR.

29
00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:58,040
Speaker 2: Local stations are all part of NPR, but they make

30
00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:00,720
Speaker 2: their own decisions and once on a time, for a

31
00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:04,320
Speaker 2: long time, there was government funding that. It's a great story.

32
00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:07,040
Speaker 2: So in nineteen sixty seven Linda Johnson said we need

33
00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:09,880
Speaker 2: a public broadcasting system. He looked at with envy like

34
00:02:09,919 --> 00:02:11,919
Speaker 2: what Britain had with the BBC and said we need

35
00:02:11,919 --> 00:02:14,520
Speaker 2: that too, and was part of the Great Society, and

36
00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:16,760
Speaker 2: there was a difference about how to fund it. Johnson

37
00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:18,720
Speaker 2: said we should fund it like the BBC with a

38
00:02:18,760 --> 00:02:21,760
Speaker 2: big endowment. There'll be immune from government pressure. And the

39
00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:24,000
Speaker 2: Republicans said, let's fund it year by year so we

40
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:26,840
Speaker 2: can actually control what they do. So they compromised and

41
00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:30,320
Speaker 2: they created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with three Republicans

42
00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:33,000
Speaker 2: and three Democrats on the board appointed by the President,

43
00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:35,880
Speaker 2: and they would get money in a two year cycle

44
00:02:35,960 --> 00:02:38,240
Speaker 2: and then they would distribute to the public overmed stations

45
00:02:38,280 --> 00:02:41,080
Speaker 2: and public gradiestations. And the theory was that would keep

46
00:02:41,160 --> 00:02:43,799
Speaker 2: us free from any kind of congressional pressure, and it

47
00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:46,480
Speaker 2: kept it red from some But at the end of

48
00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:48,040
Speaker 2: the day, as we sit here, there is no more

49
00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:50,800
Speaker 2: Corporation for Public Broadcasting and there's no more federal funding.

50
00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:55,320
Speaker 2: Why because in President Trump's plan, he was very clear

51
00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,959
Speaker 2: that he doesn't believe in public broadcasting, and they set

52
00:02:57,960 --> 00:03:00,600
Speaker 2: about systematically to make sure all fund they went away.

53
00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:04,720
Speaker 1: Now, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provided funds in two

54
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:07,760
Speaker 1: year cycles to the radio networks and the TV networks

55
00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:11,080
Speaker 1: both exactly. And then that budget was like five hundred

56
00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:14,480
Speaker 1: million dollars a year exactly that they distributed to everybody. Now,

57
00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:17,960
Speaker 1: your description of the way a NEAT exists is the

58
00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:22,799
Speaker 1: same for GBH and these other legacy public televisions. Everybody's independent.

59
00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:27,760
Speaker 1: Why do you think some consortium of state arts funders

60
00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:30,520
Speaker 1: didn't get together and let's say ten big states and

61
00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:33,480
Speaker 1: pony up fifty million each to fill in that. Well,

62
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:35,600
Speaker 1: that's not a lot of money. Really, you know, it's fun.

63
00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:37,760
Speaker 2: You should say that because while I was living through this,

64
00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:40,440
Speaker 2: and you remember a long congressional battle, take a long time,

65
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:43,200
Speaker 2: some of my friends who are traveled in some of

66
00:03:43,200 --> 00:03:45,600
Speaker 2: those circles, some wealthy connected, said this is going to

67
00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:47,960
Speaker 2: be fine, because nobody at first they said this is

68
00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:50,440
Speaker 2: never gonna happen because obviously it's a dollar thirty five

69
00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:52,920
Speaker 2: for taxpayer. It's just going to be for the for

70
00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:54,720
Speaker 2: the political joy of this, but they're not really going

71
00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:57,480
Speaker 2: to happen. And if it does, don't worry because everybody

72
00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:01,000
Speaker 2: values MPR and PBS, and you'll get foundations of people

73
00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:02,840
Speaker 2: fill in the gap and it will be great. And

74
00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:04,880
Speaker 2: that hasn't happened. It's happened a little bit, but not

75
00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:06,880
Speaker 2: a lot. And part of the reason for that, I

76
00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:09,400
Speaker 2: think is if we were the only thing that President

77
00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:11,960
Speaker 2: Trump went after, that's the only target of his ire

78
00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:14,200
Speaker 2: that might have happened. But there's so many and every

79
00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:18,159
Speaker 2: foundation I talked to is like Kevin Lyne, every college, Yeah,

80
00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:22,080
Speaker 2: everything we support, higher education, mental health, medical research is

81
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:24,000
Speaker 2: all under fire. So I think that's part of the

82
00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:25,800
Speaker 2: reason that hasn't happened. It's happened a little bit, but

83
00:04:25,839 --> 00:04:26,800
Speaker 2: not in the big numbers.

84
00:04:26,839 --> 00:04:29,920
Speaker 1: I thought it might. As a tough slum described to

85
00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:33,400
Speaker 1: me how this great career of yours in broadcast news

86
00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:37,120
Speaker 1: and in public television was launched by the pinball scandal.

87
00:04:37,400 --> 00:04:40,000
Speaker 2: Well, you really researched very well. This is a good

88
00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:42,560
Speaker 2: example actually for all journalists out there, is that you

89
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:45,760
Speaker 2: have to have a story take you wherever the facts

90
00:04:45,839 --> 00:04:48,360
Speaker 2: take you, and be to recognize your art, not always

91
00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:51,240
Speaker 2: in this for the glory or for the appreciation. So

92
00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:54,120
Speaker 2: I was a freshman at Tuts University and there was

93
00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:56,120
Speaker 2: a story in the Boston Globe about how some of

94
00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:58,599
Speaker 2: the neighborhoods it was in Medford and Somerville had a

95
00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:01,359
Speaker 2: scandal involving pinball machine that the mob owned them and

96
00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:04,240
Speaker 2: they would hit the owners of the bars for money,

97
00:05:04,480 --> 00:05:07,160
Speaker 2: and these machines weren't licensed, and that's how well they

98
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:07,640
Speaker 2: needed to be.

99
00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:08,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

100
00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:09,880
Speaker 2: So I called them sin and said, hey, I'm just wondering, like,

101
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:12,200
Speaker 2: you know where our licenses are? And they go, what licensees?

102
00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:13,919
Speaker 2: I go, You know, the licensees you need to have

103
00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:17,080
Speaker 2: pinball machines, they go, we do. Hours later, big trucks

104
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:18,960
Speaker 2: pulled in and they took all the pinball machines off

105
00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:21,719
Speaker 2: campus because they were unlicensed. And I was not the

106
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:24,359
Speaker 2: most popular guy, you know, because the pinball machines were

107
00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:27,640
Speaker 2: both recreation and provided funding for those quarters added up

108
00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:29,920
Speaker 2: for the buildings. But it's also a good example. But

109
00:05:30,120 --> 00:05:31,440
Speaker 2: they were angry at me for a day. It turned

110
00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:33,120
Speaker 2: out it took like a day to get the licenses.

111
00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:34,760
Speaker 2: In two days and the machines came back, it was

112
00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:37,080
Speaker 2: it over. So yeah, yeah, but you know, they said,

113
00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:38,520
Speaker 2: why did you even print it?

114
00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:38,960
Speaker 1: Right?

115
00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:41,440
Speaker 2: So, because that's not you know, even as amateur journale,

116
00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:43,040
Speaker 2: that's not my job is not to say I'm not

117
00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:44,480
Speaker 2: going to enforce the law. My job is say here

118
00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:45,800
Speaker 2: to the fact that you can say you don't want

119
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:48,080
Speaker 2: to support it. So that was a good training about

120
00:05:48,200 --> 00:05:50,680
Speaker 2: how sometimes being journalism isn't isn't a road to popularity.

121
00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:54,680
Speaker 1: So your career beyond toughts and writing for them and

122
00:05:54,720 --> 00:05:57,960
Speaker 1: so forth, your career and television begins where at ABC

123
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:00,599
Speaker 1: News at ABC and you were there for how long?

124
00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:03,640
Speaker 1: For thirteen years? And my recollection back then because I

125
00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:06,000
Speaker 1: was a person who The only way I could communicate

126
00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:09,160
Speaker 1: with my father and have any kind of emotional connection

127
00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:10,400
Speaker 1: with him at all was to sit with him and

128
00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:12,320
Speaker 1: watch the evening news every night since I was ten

129
00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:13,360
Speaker 1: years old and tall.

130
00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:16,599
Speaker 2: A funny story about that. Yeah, that's true. When I

131
00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:18,760
Speaker 2: was a kid, we all watched the evening news together

132
00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:21,520
Speaker 2: and we are not allowed to talk except during commercials,

133
00:06:21,800 --> 00:06:23,680
Speaker 2: and if we did talk during commercials, my father would

134
00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:25,720
Speaker 2: throw water at us because we had to watch the news.

135
00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:28,520
Speaker 1: I was always under the impression that in terms of

136
00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,760
Speaker 1: the three major networks back then, no Fox, that in

137
00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:35,720
Speaker 1: all regards that the Leonard Goldberg launched ABC network was

138
00:06:35,760 --> 00:06:38,440
Speaker 1: the redheaded step child of the three. Did you sense

139
00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:40,240
Speaker 1: that when you went there to work it was it.

140
00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:43,240
Speaker 2: Was clearly underfunded. That was I got there runarul to

141
00:06:43,279 --> 00:06:45,320
Speaker 2: just move, moved from sports to news and sports, and

142
00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:48,360
Speaker 2: was had a little bit of infusion. What year nineteen eighty,

143
00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:50,680
Speaker 2: ABC News was the last of the least. I always

144
00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:52,719
Speaker 2: had the least amount of resources, and as tot ABC,

145
00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:54,520
Speaker 2: like you know, the big story was, if you wanted

146
00:06:54,520 --> 00:06:56,760
Speaker 2: to end the Vietnam War, put it on ABC, you'd

147
00:06:56,760 --> 00:06:58,680
Speaker 2: be canceled in thirteen weeks.

148
00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:01,240
Speaker 1: So then everybody told story. I loved that, right.

149
00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:04,240
Speaker 2: So we were underfunded and ABC News was so underfunded,

150
00:07:04,279 --> 00:07:07,360
Speaker 2: and so that back in the day everybody had two

151
00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:09,320
Speaker 2: fees of the evning news at six thirty and seven.

152
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,440
Speaker 2: ABC had won at six because they said to the stations, look, okay,

153
00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:15,200
Speaker 2: we're never to the best, but the earliest, so you

154
00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:16,680
Speaker 2: can put us on and get us over with. Then

155
00:07:16,680 --> 00:07:18,520
Speaker 2: you can put local news on at six thirty and seven.

156
00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 2: And for a long time we had three fees and

157
00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:22,960
Speaker 2: it was a sign that we actually were as we

158
00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,280
Speaker 2: invested more and more, and they, you know, they changed

159
00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:26,560
Speaker 2: the news that we had. We can get rid of

160
00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:28,120
Speaker 2: that six o'clock feet and say we're going to be

161
00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:32,119
Speaker 2: like the big boys. When I joined in eighteen eighty,

162
00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:34,680
Speaker 2: ABC decided to change a couple things. They changed the

163
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:37,240
Speaker 2: evening news. They had three anchors, which nobody ever had before.

164
00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:41,200
Speaker 2: Frank Reynolds in Washington, Peter Jennings in London, Max Rominson Chicago.

165
00:07:41,440 --> 00:07:43,800
Speaker 2: Was a huge, big thing to try to make over

166
00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:45,720
Speaker 2: the fact that we didn't have Walter Cronkite and we

167
00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:48,760
Speaker 2: didn't have David Brinkley, so we had three people, but

168
00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:51,480
Speaker 2: it was a faster, more you know, more satellites, more

169
00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:54,760
Speaker 2: energy around the news. The other thing was that the

170
00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:57,920
Speaker 2: Iron hostage crisis started America Health osage, which gave birth

171
00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:01,360
Speaker 2: to Nightline, which was a huge, huge game changer for

172
00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:03,360
Speaker 2: ABC News because suddenly it had a half hour news

173
00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:06,120
Speaker 2: late night that nobody had. And Takappa became the.

174
00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:09,080
Speaker 1: Dayline on the air before that, no after that, Dayline

175
00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:11,200
Speaker 1: came after, so.

176
00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:11,320
Speaker 2: So Nightline came first.

177
00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:12,120
Speaker 1: Night Line was first.

178
00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:15,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my jobs were I started out writing speeches

179
00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:17,320
Speaker 2: and doing research for somebody. That was my first job.

180
00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:20,200
Speaker 2: Then I got to write promos, which was a great job.

181
00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:22,200
Speaker 1: I've read about that, yeah, because it's like eighteen and

182
00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:22,960
Speaker 1: a half second promo.

183
00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:25,760
Speaker 2: It's like a show for eighteen half seconds and it's

184
00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:27,720
Speaker 2: got all the same ingredients for show. It's only eighteen

185
00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:29,440
Speaker 2: a half seconds long. It has to be perfect eighteen

186
00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:31,200
Speaker 2: and a half seconds. It has to be written, all

187
00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:33,000
Speaker 2: the pictures have to match, it has the deadline. So

188
00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:35,480
Speaker 2: it's a good way to learn. And then I worked

189
00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:37,880
Speaker 2: for World News Tonight and then I worked for it

190
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:40,160
Speaker 2: was the anchor. Then by that point Peter Jennings was he.

191
00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:43,240
Speaker 1: Came back from London. He was the anchor. I knew him.

192
00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:45,079
Speaker 1: He used to host an event for the Bridgehampton Rec

193
00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:48,400
Speaker 1: Center in on Long Island in Bridgeampton at his house there,

194
00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:50,480
Speaker 1: and he was the loveliest guy. He had a skill.

195
00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:52,000
Speaker 2: I think you'd be good at this too, but you'd

196
00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:54,200
Speaker 2: appreciate how hard this is. One of the well, the

197
00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:56,160
Speaker 2: hardest things that anchors have to do, especially when they're

198
00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:58,600
Speaker 2: live right now, there's no prompter. It's you and things

199
00:08:58,679 --> 00:09:01,200
Speaker 2: right is as you talk, people are talking in your

200
00:09:01,240 --> 00:09:03,360
Speaker 2: ear piece, and it's incredibly hard.

201
00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:04,360
Speaker 1: But it's hard.

202
00:09:04,559 --> 00:09:05,959
Speaker 2: I've had to do it. When you try to talk

203
00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:07,800
Speaker 2: to someone and they're talking, like, how do you quickly

204
00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:08,559
Speaker 2: give them information?

205
00:09:08,679 --> 00:09:08,800
Speaker 1: Right?

206
00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:11,080
Speaker 2: Like you were going to Yale or something like that

207
00:09:11,120 --> 00:09:13,920
Speaker 2: really quickly. But when the world's falling apart, you have

208
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:17,439
Speaker 2: to be on your game interviewing people, not then you

209
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:20,120
Speaker 2: melt down. That's right, that's right, that's side. But if

210
00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:23,600
Speaker 2: you're Peter right, Peter was incredible at that and during

211
00:09:23,679 --> 00:09:26,160
Speaker 2: break and all those all those guys are during breaking

212
00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:27,840
Speaker 2: news to be able to have that skill to both

213
00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:30,680
Speaker 2: talk to people listen and you're also kind of, you know,

214
00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:31,440
Speaker 2: forming the story.

215
00:09:31,640 --> 00:09:32,080
Speaker 1: And NBC.

216
00:09:32,200 --> 00:09:34,480
Speaker 2: I was there nine to eleven and so watch that

217
00:09:34,559 --> 00:09:37,920
Speaker 2: team work, right, the world's falling apart around you. You're

218
00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:40,319
Speaker 2: talking to people, you're also having to piece together like

219
00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:42,640
Speaker 2: America is being a taxier knowing the story we've ever

220
00:09:42,679 --> 00:09:45,160
Speaker 2: seen before, and you're constantly getting hosting a show.

221
00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:45,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

222
00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:47,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's an incredible skill.

223
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:50,360
Speaker 1: So no local news for you ever, You went right

224
00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:52,880
Speaker 1: to the network. Yeah, because I remember when I was younger,

225
00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:55,000
Speaker 1: and I always try to tell people that the tabloid

226
00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:58,040
Speaker 1: component of media back then was often like a dunce

227
00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:00,000
Speaker 1: cap in a corner, right, and they were kind of

228
00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:03,280
Speaker 1: ashamed of it. I remember. I always remember as a child,

229
00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:06,480
Speaker 1: I watched Roger Grimsby and Bill You Tell Right, And

230
00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:09,400
Speaker 1: whenever Rona Barrett would finish, they cut to Grimsby and

231
00:10:09,440 --> 00:10:11,640
Speaker 1: he'd just stare at the camera like can you believe

232
00:10:11,679 --> 00:10:13,960
Speaker 1: that he had shot on my show? He literally would

233
00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:14,760
Speaker 1: take a count of three.

234
00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:16,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was his charms.

235
00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:18,200
Speaker 1: Charm was like you just would be like, you know,

236
00:10:18,559 --> 00:10:20,880
Speaker 1: and now Rona Barrett And when they'd come back from her,

237
00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:23,160
Speaker 1: they'd be dripping with sarcasm. Do you know?

238
00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:24,680
Speaker 2: You know the great story of that Channel seven is

239
00:10:24,679 --> 00:10:28,600
Speaker 2: a true story. Roseanne Scamradella, who was the model for Roseanne.

240
00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:31,440
Speaker 2: Rosanna Dana right was doing her story and she and

241
00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:34,200
Speaker 2: Grimsby are having some fight, right but just before they

242
00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:35,480
Speaker 2: go on there and they cut to a wide shot.

243
00:10:35,559 --> 00:10:38,040
Speaker 2: In the wide shot, she gives him the finger, right,

244
00:10:38,520 --> 00:10:41,320
Speaker 2: and then Grimsey goes, I guess Roseanne saying we're number one.

245
00:10:42,480 --> 00:10:45,520
Speaker 1: So you're there and nightline is berthed and you're there

246
00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:46,480
Speaker 1: for how many years at ABC?

247
00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:48,680
Speaker 2: So thirteen and so I went from there. Then I

248
00:10:48,679 --> 00:10:51,640
Speaker 2: worked a Primetime Live and Primetime LIVEE was at that time,

249
00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:54,080
Speaker 2: magazines were just you know, for a long time. Sixty

250
00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:57,720
Speaker 2: Months was the only successful news magazine ABC started twenty twenty.

251
00:10:57,760 --> 00:11:00,360
Speaker 2: That's kind of worked. MBC had never made at work

252
00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:02,880
Speaker 2: and they wanted a second one. So Rune loved Diane,

253
00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:04,720
Speaker 2: so I always want to get away from sixty minutes.

254
00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:07,360
Speaker 2: He got our partner with Sam Donaldson and we started

255
00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:09,000
Speaker 2: the show, and I was one of the senior producers

256
00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:11,760
Speaker 2: on the show. And this is a good example. I'm

257
00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:13,959
Speaker 2: sure you've had this new career when like the marketing

258
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,360
Speaker 2: people overhyped something before you've ever seen it. So literally,

259
00:11:17,400 --> 00:11:19,240
Speaker 2: the ad before we went in the air was television

260
00:11:19,280 --> 00:11:22,400
Speaker 2: news that you've never seen it before. And the copy

261
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:23,959
Speaker 2: is all about you'll never miss this show. It's the

262
00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:25,840
Speaker 2: most incredible thing you've ever seen. And like all shows,

263
00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:27,880
Speaker 2: we were still finding our rhythm. So it was a

264
00:11:27,960 --> 00:11:28,600
Speaker 2: rocky start.

265
00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:31,880
Speaker 1: So the show You Did, Diane came from CBS to

266
00:11:31,920 --> 00:11:34,760
Speaker 1: ABC to do what show Primetime Live to do Private and

267
00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:35,840
Speaker 1: that was on for how long?

268
00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:37,720
Speaker 2: That was on for a long time, though it went

269
00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:40,760
Speaker 2: through many different phases. I left after like four years.

270
00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:43,360
Speaker 2: I left to go to NBC because NBC was like

271
00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:46,959
Speaker 2: over seventeen in news magazines and yet they were making

272
00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 2: a lot of money, so there's a lot of pressure

273
00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:50,520
Speaker 2: on them to like do something. So they were talking

274
00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:52,640
Speaker 2: to me about starting a news magazine. And I liked ABC,

275
00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:54,400
Speaker 2: but I sort of felt I was like, I felt

276
00:11:54,400 --> 00:11:56,240
Speaker 2: like I was like the bullpen picture on the sixty

277
00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:57,800
Speaker 2: one Yankees, Like I'm never going to get to do

278
00:11:57,800 --> 00:11:59,880
Speaker 2: anything because the place is like so deep and I

279
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:01,440
Speaker 2: grew up there and I'm always going to be the

280
00:12:01,559 --> 00:12:02,280
Speaker 2: kid who grew up.

281
00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:04,480
Speaker 1: There and during that time that thirteen years are ready.

282
00:12:04,679 --> 00:12:07,360
Speaker 1: So the Primetime Labe was inside of that thirteen years.

283
00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:10,360
Speaker 1: So when you're there for thirteen years, you decided just

284
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:12,280
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody has an instinct when it's time to

285
00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:14,600
Speaker 1: move on, and you had that instinct. Hy NBC.

286
00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:16,960
Speaker 2: They needed you, they needed me, Yeah, and I might

287
00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:19,160
Speaker 2: have stayed. I think actually was more about it was

288
00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:20,360
Speaker 2: a really hard time to leave because it was the

289
00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:22,560
Speaker 2: only place I'd ever worked, and I thought, you know,

290
00:12:22,880 --> 00:12:24,679
Speaker 2: and at that time there was still point where people

291
00:12:24,679 --> 00:12:27,400
Speaker 2: worked that networks their whole lives, and I thought so.

292
00:12:27,559 --> 00:12:30,480
Speaker 2: And when I ultimately decided to leave, rune Oildge calls

293
00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:32,760
Speaker 2: me into his office. So room's friendly, and he's got

294
00:12:32,760 --> 00:12:34,959
Speaker 2: behind him all the NBC's won, just like one hundred

295
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:38,360
Speaker 2: mts right, and the sunlight hits the Emmys and there's

296
00:12:38,360 --> 00:12:40,640
Speaker 2: this gold aura behind him as he says here and

297
00:12:40,679 --> 00:12:42,640
Speaker 2: he goes Helo and he goes neil You're making the

298
00:12:42,679 --> 00:12:45,200
Speaker 2: biggest mistake in your life. What do I know. I'm

299
00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:47,640
Speaker 2: only Runinilich, But you know, godspeed.

300
00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:50,439
Speaker 1: I did it soap opera for NBC back in the

301
00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:53,360
Speaker 1: days of the Last of a Half Hours. I started

302
00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:55,880
Speaker 1: in the fall of eighty I finished in the fall

303
00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:57,640
Speaker 1: of eighty two. They asked me to stay till January.

304
00:12:57,679 --> 00:12:59,520
Speaker 1: I said, no, I'm going to go to la And

305
00:12:59,559 --> 00:13:01,600
Speaker 1: they were really mustling me. It was like a scene

306
00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:04,720
Speaker 1: out of a bad movie where the producer Jerry Straub

307
00:13:04,840 --> 00:13:06,880
Speaker 1: was standing with two other guys that were producers and

308
00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:08,240
Speaker 1: I said, fellows, the answer is no, I'm not going

309
00:13:08,280 --> 00:13:10,000
Speaker 1: to extend for three months. I gotta go. I'm gonna go.

310
00:13:10,360 --> 00:13:12,000
Speaker 1: And as I walk away, he yells at me down

311
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:13,800
Speaker 1: the way, gays, what do you think you go out

312
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:15,080
Speaker 1: to the Hollywood and become.

313
00:13:14,880 --> 00:13:15,640
Speaker 2: A big movie star.

314
00:13:16,559 --> 00:13:18,720
Speaker 1: You're out of your mind. Come back here.

315
00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:19,000
Speaker 2: You know.

316
00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:21,720
Speaker 1: It's like he's shouting down this this kind of Citizen

317
00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:27,040
Speaker 1: Kane esque. I'm so Foster Kane. You know. In that world,

318
00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:28,720
Speaker 1: they were always like, you know you're done when I

319
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:31,240
Speaker 1: tell you you're done. You don't decide when you're done.

320
00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:35,320
Speaker 1: But when you leave and go to NBC, NBC was

321
00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:36,960
Speaker 1: down a bit in terms of the so.

322
00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,000
Speaker 2: And so I I, here's what. I goes to NBC

323
00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:40,760
Speaker 2: and they said, we want you to develop a new

324
00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:42,880
Speaker 2: news magazine because we're right, and they had this, they

325
00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:44,959
Speaker 2: had this magazine Dayline NBC, which was on the air.

326
00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:48,600
Speaker 2: And while they're talking to me, Dayline NBC has perhaps

327
00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:50,320
Speaker 2: the one of the biggest mistakes ever in the history

328
00:13:50,320 --> 00:13:53,080
Speaker 2: of journalism. They're doing a story about GM pickup trucks,

329
00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:56,520
Speaker 2: and the allegation was when these two pickup trucks collided,

330
00:13:56,720 --> 00:13:58,920
Speaker 2: the gas tanks would explode. It was a dangerous truck.

331
00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:02,120
Speaker 2: So they do this story. They have these two trucks collide,

332
00:14:02,160 --> 00:14:04,960
Speaker 2: they need they do explode. It's a big story. It

333
00:14:04,960 --> 00:14:07,280
Speaker 2: turns out that the best investigative reporting on this story

334
00:14:07,320 --> 00:14:09,640
Speaker 2: is actually done by General Motors. General Motors finds the

335
00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:12,360
Speaker 2: cars that they use in the collision, and in these

336
00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:15,640
Speaker 2: cars they use sparking devices, which are not necessarily wrong.

337
00:14:15,679 --> 00:14:17,400
Speaker 2: That's how the federal government does it. When the federal

338
00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,200
Speaker 2: government runs these tests, they don't run cars together endlessly

339
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:22,400
Speaker 2: to see if they explode. They put together and they

340
00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:24,200
Speaker 2: make them explode. Yeah, and they put on a spark

341
00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:26,400
Speaker 2: to see, you know, to see if there's a potential

342
00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:29,040
Speaker 2: to it. That's how they test it. That's the protocol

343
00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:31,280
Speaker 2: to tests these things. But in the dayline story they

344
00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:34,200
Speaker 2: never told people that. So when GM says, look what

345
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:37,320
Speaker 2: we found. They have this secret sparking device, it's a

346
00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:42,600
Speaker 2: gigantic faux pas. The president NBC News leaves the Executiveridufser

347
00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:45,360
Speaker 2: was fired. When the Prowser the piece and the right

348
00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:47,120
Speaker 2: and you show up right then, well and I just

349
00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:50,240
Speaker 2: about sign I just red sign it. And they said, listen,

350
00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:52,440
Speaker 2: while you're thinking of this idea, we have this show,

351
00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:54,800
Speaker 2: could you just like step in because we're like, we

352
00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:56,680
Speaker 2: can't go to black, you can just like keep the

353
00:14:56,720 --> 00:14:58,440
Speaker 2: show while and I said I'll start.

354
00:14:58,720 --> 00:14:58,800
Speaker 1: It.

355
00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:00,880
Speaker 2: Turns out a couple things. First, when you walk into

356
00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:02,960
Speaker 2: a show and there's nothing there, they covered, hiss bear,

357
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:04,800
Speaker 2: you can do whatever you want. We'd get to rethink

358
00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:06,400
Speaker 2: the model a little bit. And one of the things

359
00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:08,520
Speaker 2: which I believed in but all trying to be true,

360
00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:10,400
Speaker 2: is we could put news back in news magazine. Up

361
00:15:10,440 --> 00:15:13,360
Speaker 2: at that point, every news magazine was like it was

362
00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:14,800
Speaker 2: never on the news. It was like, you know, they

363
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:17,200
Speaker 2: spent weeks months in production they had it was like

364
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:21,000
Speaker 2: it was a Hollywood thing via a meeting, a pre meeting,

365
00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:23,760
Speaker 2: a writing meeting, a post meeting, a write, a read through,

366
00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:26,000
Speaker 2: you know, take the same months to get pieces on

367
00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:27,600
Speaker 2: the here. I didn't have the time to do that,

368
00:15:27,680 --> 00:15:29,560
Speaker 2: so let's just see what we could do around the news.

369
00:15:29,560 --> 00:15:32,040
Speaker 2: So that was successful and also turned out people have

370
00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:34,120
Speaker 2: no memory at all, like Dayline, night Line, like nobody

371
00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:36,600
Speaker 2: remembered it, so there was no nobody really cared about

372
00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:39,480
Speaker 2: the story. So this the show started to do pretty well.

373
00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:41,720
Speaker 2: And then because we were a time when news magazines

374
00:15:41,760 --> 00:15:44,000
Speaker 2: were incredibly popular, they said, listen, could you just do

375
00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:44,560
Speaker 2: you know it?

376
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:44,960
Speaker 1: One night?

377
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:47,720
Speaker 2: Could you do two? Could you do Tuesday and Thursday night?

378
00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:51,400
Speaker 2: That I can try? That did really well. They said, listen,

379
00:15:51,760 --> 00:15:54,160
Speaker 2: you're doing two, could you do three? And at one

380
00:15:54,160 --> 00:15:55,520
Speaker 2: point we're up to five nights a week.

381
00:15:55,560 --> 00:15:57,480
Speaker 1: So this is when you get to what season of

382
00:15:57,560 --> 00:15:59,760
Speaker 1: dateline are you win? You get to five? You were

383
00:15:59,800 --> 00:16:03,600
Speaker 1: there from what year to what year? And one? Yeah?

384
00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:07,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, So about about season two we start doing two,

385
00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:09,480
Speaker 2: then season three we go to three, then season four,

386
00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:12,040
Speaker 2: I guess it would be four and five. By season

387
00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:13,400
Speaker 2: six we have like five shows a week.

388
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:15,359
Speaker 1: Did they Quinn tupple your salary?

389
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:15,960
Speaker 2: They did that?

390
00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:20,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, but when you're doing that, I mean, whether's

391
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,320
Speaker 1: ever my concern would be is there enough content out there?

392
00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:24,680
Speaker 1: Do we you stressed about that?

393
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:27,520
Speaker 2: Well? Not really, there are other issues. But it turned out,

394
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:29,360
Speaker 2: first of it was that we're living at the time.

395
00:16:29,520 --> 00:16:32,520
Speaker 2: It's not true anymore because news magazines were so new,

396
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:35,560
Speaker 2: like everything in TV, like westerns, like variety shows a

397
00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:37,360
Speaker 2: moment like this is your moment, right, So there was

398
00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:39,720
Speaker 2: a lot of that, and there are also some stories.

399
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:41,960
Speaker 2: I mean, that was the O. J. Simpson story. That

400
00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:43,960
Speaker 2: was that was the gift they kept on giving. It

401
00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,880
Speaker 2: was every day there was something. When Diana died, two

402
00:16:46,920 --> 00:16:49,440
Speaker 2: things emerging that for me. One is trying to be

403
00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:52,120
Speaker 2: nimble and understanding that you have to understand what the

404
00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:54,680
Speaker 2: audience is interested in. And after she died, I thought, well,

405
00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:56,560
Speaker 2: that's like an hour, like we're gonna be done, but

406
00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:58,280
Speaker 2: let's do a few more stories just to make sure.

407
00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:00,640
Speaker 2: I was like totally wrong. People could not get enough

408
00:17:00,720 --> 00:17:02,920
Speaker 2: of Diana, and not just Diana, but every part of

409
00:17:02,960 --> 00:17:06,880
Speaker 2: that story about the publicity, about the royalty, about charity

410
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,119
Speaker 2: and how that were you know, are dying. Yeah, I

411
00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:10,639
Speaker 2: could not get enough of it. So we did like

412
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:12,840
Speaker 2: two weeks of like, you know, ten shows about it.

413
00:17:13,119 --> 00:17:15,320
Speaker 2: So I don't think we really ran out of stuff.

414
00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:18,840
Speaker 1: When you're running a show, eventually you become in charge

415
00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:21,480
Speaker 1: of NBC News. Were you in charge of NBC News

416
00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:24,000
Speaker 1: during the transition from Yeah? Right? So when you're there,

417
00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:28,000
Speaker 1: why does does i've assume those guys? You know, you

418
00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:30,200
Speaker 1: have to peel that chair out of their cold dead hands.

419
00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,160
Speaker 1: They never wanted he wanted to leave.

420
00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:34,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he was done broken and he's an

421
00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:36,720
Speaker 2: active guy. You know, there's still mountains I want to climb,

422
00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:38,560
Speaker 2: there are bike roads I want to do. Right, right,

423
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:39,720
Speaker 2: I've had a lot good long run.

424
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:40,800
Speaker 1: And his ratings were decent.

425
00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:43,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we were number one, right, Yeah, you're right.

426
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:45,160
Speaker 2: You know, Walter crank Kit had to be pushed out

427
00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 2: by Dan rather but but Tom's it was Tom's idea.

428
00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:50,640
Speaker 1: He wanted to go. And when you're when you're looking

429
00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:52,640
Speaker 1: at someone, do you always have a plan because you're

430
00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:55,000
Speaker 1: not saying Tom's going to go, But while you're thinking

431
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:56,720
Speaker 1: if Tom goes, if you've already got the other guy

432
00:17:56,760 --> 00:17:58,240
Speaker 1: lined up, he's in the bullpen getting ready.

433
00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:00,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you knew, you knew it was yeah, yeah,

434
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:02,639
Speaker 2: And for a long time we sort of knew was Brian.

435
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:06,000
Speaker 2: The thing that we tried to do, especially in his

436
00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:08,800
Speaker 2: keeps signaling to the audience like whenever Tom's not there,

437
00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:12,040
Speaker 2: Brian not there. Because I remember, like three years before

438
00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:14,840
Speaker 2: Tom left, we're always doing these surveys asking people what

439
00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:16,600
Speaker 2: do you like about the show, etc. One of the

440
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,359
Speaker 2: questions was if Tom left, who should his replacement be?

441
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:22,199
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you know, no single answer emerged, Like

442
00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:24,280
Speaker 2: you know, reporters they saw Tim Russer, you know that,

443
00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:27,480
Speaker 2: you know, Brian gumble like just all no rhyme or

444
00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:29,520
Speaker 2: rhythm to it in a part because we never really

445
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:32,080
Speaker 2: signaled to the audience, no, this is the person. So

446
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:35,000
Speaker 2: in his last year was always you know, Brian was

447
00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:37,119
Speaker 2: always there and we did it again like obviously it

448
00:18:37,119 --> 00:18:39,639
Speaker 2: should be Brian. So that and the two of them

449
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,119
Speaker 2: are really good about each other. They were very they

450
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:44,960
Speaker 2: appreciated each other, They were showed total respect to each

451
00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 2: They were both incredible pros and sort of doing that transformation.

452
00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:51,520
Speaker 1: In what way did your career overlap with Zuckers? You

453
00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:52,640
Speaker 1: were there together for how long?

454
00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:55,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like seven years. Maybe he was when I came.

455
00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:57,480
Speaker 2: He was the EPU of the Today Show. I was

456
00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:01,040
Speaker 2: at Daylines, so we worked together a lot. Then he

457
00:19:01,320 --> 00:19:03,719
Speaker 2: got promoted to the West Coast, so I still were

458
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:05,720
Speaker 2: I didn't work with quite as much, but he still had

459
00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:07,720
Speaker 2: you know, Dayline was a primetime show, so I still

460
00:19:07,720 --> 00:19:08,440
Speaker 2: saw him a little bit.

461
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:10,879
Speaker 1: Then were you involved in any decision making for the

462
00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:13,240
Speaker 1: Today Show where they were completely independent, you're writing the

463
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:14,879
Speaker 1: news division went under the news division.

464
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:17,479
Speaker 2: It was, but by the time I got there, they'd

465
00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:19,399
Speaker 2: done the transition to Matt and Katie were there like

466
00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:22,719
Speaker 2: they were that they were the team gone. Yeah, you know,

467
00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:24,639
Speaker 2: so the Tay Show was that was the family of

468
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:26,280
Speaker 2: the morning family. So I didn't have to really worry

469
00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:28,320
Speaker 2: about it. They were all they were all doing incredibly well.

470
00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:31,359
Speaker 1: It was Gemmen. Was Gumble ever considered too for Brian William's.

471
00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:33,320
Speaker 2: Job when I was there, I think in a long

472
00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:35,520
Speaker 2: time ago. By the time I got there, he had gone.

473
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:37,440
Speaker 2: He had filled in on you know, weekend news. I

474
00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:37,920
Speaker 2: think he and.

475
00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:38,880
Speaker 1: Want that job.

476
00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:41,160
Speaker 2: I don't think so really, No, I mean I think

477
00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:42,879
Speaker 2: what you know, I when I talked to him a

478
00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:45,440
Speaker 2: little bit, and he's a really smart guy. I think

479
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:47,720
Speaker 2: part of sort of the the you know, we pitched,

480
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:49,520
Speaker 2: we tried to do some magazine stuff with him. He

481
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:52,640
Speaker 2: didn't know you liked doing that. I think he's really smart.

482
00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:55,439
Speaker 2: And also I think he's tries to make sure the

483
00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:57,159
Speaker 2: match is just right for him and if it's not,

484
00:19:57,359 --> 00:19:58,240
Speaker 2: he's a sports show.

485
00:19:58,320 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 1: Yeah you ran with that forever.

486
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:01,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that for a while, And I think that

487
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:04,040
Speaker 2: was actually a perfect thing for him, right, because it

488
00:20:04,119 --> 00:20:06,040
Speaker 2: was he knew really well shut off his writing and

489
00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:07,960
Speaker 2: interviewing skills, and also wasn't every day.

490
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:12,119
Speaker 1: Now. I'm not saying this to embarrass you, but I

491
00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:14,960
Speaker 1: don't want to assume that you were an avid WNT

492
00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:18,680
Speaker 1: public television viewer doing your network news career, or were

493
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:19,920
Speaker 1: you not much.

494
00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:22,560
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean I watched it now and then first,

495
00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:24,840
Speaker 2: when you have those jobs, you're pretty consumed, like with

496
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:27,040
Speaker 2: just your own job, right. And I remember when I

497
00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:29,200
Speaker 2: was at how consumed I was. When I was at ABC.

498
00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:32,520
Speaker 2: I was producing Primetime, proof of Primetime life, really busy

499
00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:35,760
Speaker 2: doing a bunch of stuff, and I'm editing on something

500
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:38,480
Speaker 2: and we're talking about like Zoomy Anderson, something I wanted

501
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:39,879
Speaker 2: to do, and he goes say, oh, that's like just

502
00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:41,639
Speaker 2: a knock off Ken Burns move, And I go, what

503
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:43,119
Speaker 2: are you talking about? And he goes, you know the

504
00:20:43,119 --> 00:20:45,320
Speaker 2: Civil War thing? Like what Civil War thing?

505
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:45,760
Speaker 1: Right?

506
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:48,560
Speaker 2: And I'm I hadn't even seen it, right, So you

507
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:50,960
Speaker 2: live in that world a little bit. I do know

508
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 2: that I am a big movie fan and I always

509
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:55,119
Speaker 2: watch the movies on Saturday Night. PBS had a lot

510
00:20:55,119 --> 00:20:57,600
Speaker 2: of great movies, so I would watch that, and NBC

511
00:20:57,600 --> 00:20:59,159
Speaker 2: didn't have you. So I'd watched that a lot of times,

512
00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:01,680
Speaker 2: and I would watch the occasional doc but I didn't

513
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:02,320
Speaker 2: much want of it.

514
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 1: President and CEO of w NET Neil Shapiro. If you

515
00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:16,160
Speaker 1: enjoy conversations with public television producers, check out my episode

516
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 1: with Judith Vecchioni on her PBS series Vietnam, A Television History.

517
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 3: At the beginning of each of these projects, we sat

518
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:29,520
Speaker 3: down all the production staff and went to school together.

519
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:33,440
Speaker 3: We had lecturers, We watched films, we discussed the stories.

520
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:36,479
Speaker 3: We talked about what's a source and what's not a source?

521
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:37,320
Speaker 2: Who is a.

522
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:41,520
Speaker 3: Combination of film school and journalism. It meant that what

523
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 3: we did was as unimpeachable as we could possibly make it,

524
00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:49,280
Speaker 3: and for Vietnam, that was critical since we were working

525
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:52,680
Speaker 3: within the decade of the fall of Saigon.

526
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:59,040
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Judith Vecchioni, go

527
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 1: to Here's the Dot Org. After the break, Neil Shapiro

528
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:08,240
Speaker 1: talks about inheriting Dateline NBC in the wake of one

529
00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 1: of the worst scandals in the news magazine's history, and

530
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 1: how he turned the show around. I'm Alec Baldwin, and

531
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:28,560
Speaker 1: this is Here's the thing. By any measure, Neil Shapiro's

532
00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:32,439
Speaker 1: career in television was flourishing. He had rescued Dateline from

533
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: Scandal and turned it into a primetime institution. He was

534
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 1: then handed the keys to all of NBC News, overseeing

535
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: the Today Show, Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News, and more.

536
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:48,159
Speaker 1: I wanted to know why. At the height of his

537
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:53,159
Speaker 1: television career, Shapiro opted to trade NBC News for the

538
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:55,640
Speaker 1: mission driven world of public broadcasting.

539
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 2: So at NBC a bunch of things happened. The whole

540
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 2: network was in trouble, like we were suddenly number three,

541
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:05,120
Speaker 2: and when when networks are in trouble, bad things happened right,

542
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 2: cutting happening right. And I didn't want to I'd already

543
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 2: made a lot of cuts and News division. I didn't

544
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 2: want to stay and have to do a lot more cuts.

545
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 2: And I knew that, and I think they knew that.

546
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 2: So my contract was up. I didn't want to stay,

547
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 2: and I didn't want me to stay. So it worked out.

548
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 2: It worked out fine, And then I started to look around.

549
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 2: I got some offers from, like I would say, conventional broadcasting, things.

550
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 2: They called me from an interview with Channel thirteen WNET

551
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 2: and I don't know if you ever had this moment

552
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 2: in your life. And he's like, I'm just going to

553
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:30,959
Speaker 2: say what I think. I'm not going to like study

554
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 2: all night. I'm not gonna I'm just gonna tell you

555
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 2: what I think.

556
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 1: It.

557
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we called in. They said that what do

558
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 2: you think about Channel thirteen? And I said, I think

559
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 2: Chance thirteen is great, But to me, it's like visiting

560
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 2: your grandparents in New York City. You come in, it's

561
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 2: really exciting, but you go see the opera, it's time

562
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 2: to go home. And I think there's so much more

563
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 2: excitement in this city. It's such a vibrant city. That's

564
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,240
Speaker 2: why I live here. There should be more of that, right,

565
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:54,119
Speaker 2: And I thought they would say get out, and they

566
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:56,919
Speaker 2: said that's right. So then I started to think more seriously,

567
00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 2: do I want to do this? This is how long

568
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 2: after you left MB see about seven months?

569
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 1: So you ran the network. You were the head of

570
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: the NEWSS for how many years?

571
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 2: For five? And that ended what year two thousand and five?

572
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: Because so nine to eleven had happened while you were

573
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: running the network. Yeah, oh god, And so they come

574
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: to you seven months later, they're offering you to consider this.

575
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: What made you say yes?

576
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 2: So the more I thought about it, you know, the

577
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 2: part of the reason I got into TV, and I still

578
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 2: believe it's an incredibly important medium and right, you can

579
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 2: do great things with it, and I'm proud of a

580
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 2: lot of it what I did in commercial TV. But

581
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 2: it was always commercial TV. It was no mistaking that,

582
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 2: you know what, we did some documentaries on like every

583
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 2: award you could win. I got no calls about that.

584
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 2: If we did a show and we fell off in

585
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 2: the second half hour and women, you know, eighteen to

586
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 2: sixty four of you like, what'd you do? Well? What

587
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 2: happened here? Right, it was commercial television. I could count

588
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 2: on one hand the number of calls I got about

589
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 2: just great journalism that they were proud of me, and

590
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 2: a lot more about what happened. What happened was the

591
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 2: leading so bad by why.

592
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 1: Did you do this?

593
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 2: And so to go to a place where it just

594
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 2: about you know where, Yeah, we care about who's watching,

595
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 2: but the MISSI it's really about whose lives we can touch,

596
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 2: either mentally emotionally. How can we be a part of

597
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 2: the discussions and without necessarily that every fraction of a

598
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 2: rating point counted was interesting to me. So that's part

599
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 2: of why I got into it. And the other thing,

600
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: which I was worried about but turned out to be easier,

601
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 2: was raising money. I never really raised money before I'd

602
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 2: raise money. Here's how I raised money in NBC. When

603
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 2: the Second Goal War happened. We did not budget for

604
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 2: the Second Golf War. So I had to go in

605
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 2: and say, what, I need thirty million dollars to cover

606
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:29,959
Speaker 2: what I think is going to cost the Second goal

607
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 2: for and I have to go from the g board.

608
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 2: And I had two things I could say. I could say,

609
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 2: you should give us this money because brave American boys

610
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 2: and girls are going to fight and die in our

611
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,439
Speaker 2: name and it's the publicy in our public airways, and

612
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 2: our responseibu to show what's happening to them and what

613
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 2: they're doing right. Or I could say, look, we're the

614
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 2: number one news network and if we don't do well,

615
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 2: we're going to lose our commercial standing and every one

616
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 2: of our shows will make less money. So I said

617
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 2: the second thing, but I felt the first thing. Now

618
00:25:57,119 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 2: I just say the first thing.

619
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,199
Speaker 1: But when you say go to the board, that's what

620
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:03,680
Speaker 1: was required to you as the president of the News Division,

621
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: was to make presentations for budgets or things like that,

622
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: a thing like huge amounts of money.

623
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 2: You know, the normal budget thing is not like that,

624
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 2: but for that huge amount of money unintended, you know,

625
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 2: like unexpected.

626
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you do that, when you when you're talking

627
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: to a ge board. Because of course on thirty Rock,

628
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: we would make a lot of fun of the board.

629
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,959
Speaker 1: Cable Now then the then Comcast becomes cable Town, right,

630
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: which was But my favorite thing, or among my favorite

631
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: things on thirty Rock was Stacy Keach doing the commercials

632
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: for Cable Town. Yes, he spits into the game whatever

633
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:36,640
Speaker 1: happened to Americans. But I love that. But but when

634
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: you're there, you're speaking to a committee or somebody who's

635
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:41,439
Speaker 1: you're not in front of an entire board. There's a

636
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: liaison for that.

637
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 2: No, it was like it was the finance community. The board.

638
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 2: It was a bunch of like big heavy hitters. It

639
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 2: was like Jack Welch was there. It was it was

640
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 2: a big thing because that was a big amount of money.

641
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: Right. Did you think that they understood the needs and

642
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: the the essentialities of the News division.

643
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 2: Well, I think they gave you the money, even money,

644
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 2: so there did that, and they valued having a good

645
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 2: news division. They thought it was important to the network.

646
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 2: It was stations cared about it, and it was a

647
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 2: prestige about it.

648
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: They liked that.

649
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 2: You know, you could call Tim Russell.

650
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 1: In first place.

651
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 2: Then in first place.

652
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: Now that's what I would have said. I was, so

653
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: tell you if you don't give me the money, but

654
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be the first place.

655
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 2: That's what I said. That's what's sold down.

656
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: So you're going to go to any t super bright guy,

657
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: very capable, very experienced guy. So I'm assuming you're sitting

658
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 1: there going if I'm going to run this place, I

659
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: better strike having like a crash course. And are you

660
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: like watching and consuming all kinds of ant.

661
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 2: Program kinds and stuff everything, Yeah, to get ready to

662
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 2: go in there?

663
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 1: Yea, yeah. And it was great. It was great.

664
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 2: First there was a lot of great stuff which I

665
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,160
Speaker 2: hadn't seen before. It was great and it was there.

666
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 2: There was a lot of things which I think having

667
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 2: some commercial expertise or experience in the private sector was

668
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 2: helpful because a lot of people I work with had

669
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,120
Speaker 2: were It's only in public telligence that's their only experience,

670
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 2: and the mission part was great. But I would say

671
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 2: to them, like they'd show me something and I say,

672
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 2: you know, these I don't stands. Graphic is really muddle.

673
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,440
Speaker 2: I don't get it. Okay, so I think we should

674
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 2: fix it, like what do you mean? And I think

675
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 2: we should take this grabbing into it. No, but we

676
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 2: did it, and there was a lot of that just

677
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 2: because that's so I think sort of being wood and

678
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 2: more urgent about that, about saying we need to be

679
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 2: that was helpful to them, I think. But I learned

680
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 2: the fun of saying, you know, I'm not sure how

681
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 2: big a number this is going to get. I don't

682
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 2: want to do if nobody's going to watch it, but

683
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. But it's okay. We did a great

684
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 2: show and we only fifteen thousand people saw it. Twenty

685
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 2: thousand people saw it. That's still a lot of people.

686
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: But do you think do you believe somewhat that coming

687
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: from the commercial world and you're running a news network

688
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: that's number one, there's a lot of money on the table,

689
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: it's NBC. Did you find that public television was less

690
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: self critical and seeking to improve things because they didn't

691
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: have the money. Really comparatively speaking.

692
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 2: I think two things happened. I think they were very

693
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 2: good about using the resources they had, probably better than

694
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 2: anybody else, but just squeezing the last dime out of

695
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 2: what they had. I think sometimes there were things like

696
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 2: they just knew we can't do this, We're never gonna

697
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 2: so you can't go there. Yeah, so we're going to

698
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 2: live in a different one. And like a good example,

699
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 2: I think part of what public TOAs is better at

700
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 2: this nuanced conversation in depth stuff. They're less good at,

701
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 2: you know, covering every breaking news around the world. They

702
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 2: don't have the resources that, so they partnered with people,

703
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 2: they partnered with the BBC. They go somewhere, but not everywhere.

704
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 2: And I think the audience gets that that's you know

705
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 2: that you're not going to get every single best video,

706
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 2: but that's okay.

707
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: Now, help me remember something because I'm ashamed to say,

708
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: but all admitted for our purposes that McNeil larror is

709
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: either one of them still alive, the one the one died,

710
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: and who's alive. I think both think they're both. They've

711
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: both gone. So you never bothered to replace that show,

712
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: or did you?

713
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 2: Well, so it evolved so it was the neil Leerror Report,

714
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 2: then it was the PBS News Hour, So which is

715
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 2: what it is now?

716
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: That's what it is.

717
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 2: Who's the host the two of them? Jeff Bennett. I'm

718
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 2: in avas of the two hours now, but it's gone

719
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 2: through Judy WOODRIF did it for a long time, so

720
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 2: we had a bunch of different transitional anchors, so we

721
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 2: still The point is, I guess there's always been an

722
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 2: hour newscast and.

723
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: Your marriage that you felt that was essential.

724
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still do. I still think yeah, because I

725
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: think the newscast as genre is vanishing, just all of them.

726
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: Right.

727
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 2: That said, there's still millions of people who watch it, right,

728
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 2: and there's still two or three million people every night

729
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 2: who watch the news hour, and I hear from them,

730
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 2: talk to them and to them. If you're a person

731
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 2: who likes to sit down at six or seven and

732
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 2: just you know, have somebody distill the events for you,

733
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 2: having an hour that has more nuanced conversations better than

734
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 2: that evening news on the networks, which is twenty three

735
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 2: minutes without you know, once you get the commercials out

736
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 2: of there, so there's more. I think they find a

737
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 2: more fulfilling experience.

738
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: You've been there? How long now at AN eighteen nineteen years,

739
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: nineteen years so thirteen at ABC? How many in NBC

740
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: thirteen thirteen and nineteen years here? And what do you

741
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: want to do that you still haven't done well?

742
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 2: I think the last part of my career is going

743
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 2: to be coming out of federal funding, I think, and

744
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 2: trying to you know, write the ship. We got to

745
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 2: think about a new reality, which is sort of no

746
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 2: federal funding. I think there's more that we can do,

747
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: especially around sort of local arts and local culture, like

748
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 2: I love, you know, you talk to Simpty space. There's

749
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 2: so many wonderful things in New York, you know, And

750
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 2: I would try and I would love to get more

751
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 2: of those, capture them on video. And I've always thought

752
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 2: about if there weren't other issues, and there are copyright

753
00:30:57,920 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 2: issues and union issues and so forth, you know, but

754
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 2: if when anyt started in nineteen sixty three, if they

755
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 2: just said we're going to shoot off Broadway shows, we

756
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 2: would have every major star in the world and the

757
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 2: beginnings of their career doing like incredible stuff. And I

758
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 2: think that, you know, we are still the place of

759
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 2: the best actors, the best writers, the best comics. They're

760
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 2: all here. I'd like to find a way to do

761
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 2: more of that.

762
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: My favorite moment my friend said to me, I'll never forget.

763
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:23,959
Speaker 1: This was years ago and we talked about what we

764
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: loved about New York. That was essential. He said, what

765
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: I love about New York is you can stand still

766
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: for one moment, eight o'clock at night, just don't move.

767
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: To sit there for one minutet eight o'clock at night

768
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: and realize that the curtain is going up on the

769
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: greatest performers in the world, the Nicks, the Ballet, the Yankees, Broadway,

770
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: the Carlisle. He said, it's all here. They're all here

771
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: in this one town. And it put a chill up

772
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: my back.

773
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 2: When he said, that's totally true.

774
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: When you say this about local arts, that's one direction

775
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: you want to go in.

776
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 2: So I like to do more of that. And I

777
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 2: think we also need to figure out everybody needs to

778
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 2: figure out what public media does. The whole media world

779
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 2: is changing. Like the days when we grew up and

780
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 2: it was three or four channels and that was it.

781
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 2: I like our long gone, and we have to make

782
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 2: sure that and we are doing it. How do we

783
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 2: make sure that the stuff we do is that everywhere

784
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 2: you might want to see it. We're in streaming, we're online,

785
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: and what different form does that take?

786
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: You know?

787
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 2: So like great performances, some of our shows, it turns

788
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 2: out when you put them on YouTube, there's a totally

789
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 2: different audience of watching them. So it's not our TV

790
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 2: audience is older as you'd expect. You've put the same

791
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:32,959
Speaker 2: content on YouTube and it's twenty three years younger. It's

792
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 2: the same thing, just the audience finds it where they are.

793
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 2: So we've got to figure out how to make all

794
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 2: that work within the world of still how to get

795
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 2: people to support us.

796
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: President and CEO of w NET Neil Shapiro. If you're

797
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to

798
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: follow here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or

799
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Neil

800
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: Shapiro shares his blunt take on the Barry Weiss situation

801
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: at sixty minutes and why he thinks running a news

802
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: operation is harder when you have opinions of your own.

803
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing The

804
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: Tiffany Network has seen better days. The dismantling of CBS

805
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: News has been ongoing for years, but the recent controversy

806
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: surrounding Barry Weiss and sixty Minutes brought the question of

807
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: editorial independence back to the front page. As someone who

808
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: has run major news operations himself, I wanted to know

809
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: what Neil Shapiro made of the current CBS situation.

810
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 2: First, I think running a networking desision is really hard work,

811
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 2: and I think it's harder if you have a a

812
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 2: publicly known opinion because now everything you do is seen

813
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 2: through that lens. And Barry became who she is because

814
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 2: she's a She's a person with clear points of view.

815
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 2: I think when you put some of the points of

816
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 2: view in charge of editorial structure, that makes it much harder.

817
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 2: That's one thing. The second thing is, I think is

818
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 2: to run it. It helps if you're running, is to

819
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 2: be a producer yourself, to understand the medium. There are

820
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 2: two things that happen. First, the fact that I think

821
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 2: you'd understand there are a bunch of screenings and you

822
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 2: can't say at the very end, I'm we're not going

823
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 2: to run it right. It's a finally delicate You look

824
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 2: at things that you have cut after cut after, if

825
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 2: you like in Hollywood, if he goes, you know, and

826
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 2: after it's all done, let's.

827
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: Just hold that we're not going to release the movie

828
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 1: too late.

829
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,959
Speaker 2: You have chance early on Broadway exactly. So the point

830
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 2: is you have your concerns and you express them early on,

831
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 2: and so it might have been a different story. The

832
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 2: other thing, which I which I think is alarming if

833
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 2: it's true, is that to say you offer it someone

834
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 2: a chance to respond and they don't take it right,

835
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 2: and then you go back you say we're gonna wait

836
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:55,919
Speaker 2: and give them make sure you know at some point

837
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 2: you get to you should journals should give people a

838
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 2: chance to respond. It should be a not appropriate, but

839
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,439
Speaker 2: at some point that's it, and then you run the story.

840
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 2: You don't keep waiting and waiting and waiting. And if

841
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 2: it's true that she said back, I want to make

842
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:09,879
Speaker 2: sure the White House gets another pass at this. That's bad, right,

843
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 2: And what we don't know is I don't know when

844
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 2: the White House was asked. But my feeling is if

845
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 2: you ask one for comment, you make sure you give

846
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 2: them enough time, don't understand what you want to talk about, right,

847
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 2: You don't ambush them But if they say no, that's it.

848
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 2: They don't get to veto the story. You don't get

849
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 2: to say you're not going to run because we choose

850
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 2: not to talk to you, you're not going to run it.

851
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:27,800
Speaker 2: That's a dangerous precedent.

852
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: I'm disappointed that I'm not this Congress because I view

853
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson is the greatest coward in American history, and

854
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:39,280
Speaker 1: he held down the country while the president raped the country.

855
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 1: He was the co conspirator there. I mean, I can't

856
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: say more ugly and more pejarative things about Mike Johnson

857
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 1: and the way he's conducted himself. But with another Congress,

858
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,359
Speaker 1: with a more reasonable Congress. And again we're getting back

859
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: to the public air wams. These people have made billions

860
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: and billions of dollars over the years exploiting this free thing.

861
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: Well they're like, hey, man, we invest all this money.

862
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: But okay, I got it. But what I was hoping

863
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: was there would be some corporate governance imposed on these companies. Well,

864
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: you can't allow the content of the news to be

865
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: influenced by business decisions. Now, I know your wife a

866
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: famous TV journalist as well, And what's your guilty pleasure

867
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: when you're laying there watching TV. What do you when

868
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: you're getting away from from WAT and public television in

869
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: the news, what do you? What's entertainment for you?

870
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 2: So the sad thing is we're so far behind. So

871
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 2: we started, but just when people say you should watch

872
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 2: this series, it's like how many episodes are there? Because

873
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 2: it takes us so long to get through it. Right,

874
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 2: So Murders in the Building, I think we're one season behind.

875
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:36,839
Speaker 1: But you like that. I like that a lot.

876
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, the Diplomat I'm like two seasons behind

877
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 2: with Kerrie. Yeah. So when people are you, can you

878
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 2: leave this twist like no, no, no, no, no, right, I'm

879
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 2: not even there yet.

880
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 1: Well, recommendations from people, which I'm very wary of because

881
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 1: they'll tell me and people I admire and people who

882
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: are colleagues in the business. They know something about how

883
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: to put it together a TV series or a movie

884
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: and they'll say to me, oh, watch this show, and

885
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: I'll go, okay, great, And this is a time saying

886
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go if there's a whole jungle of things

887
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: out there and not enough time. So disclaimer comes on

888
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: now Kevin kleimb doing a streaming series, I mean, that's

889
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: an opportunity for me, and I love that show and

890
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:14,760
Speaker 1: it's one season in your rout. Yeah, so the guilty

891
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:15,919
Speaker 1: pleasure for you was streaming TV.

892
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and well and the Yankees. Let me ask you, Ath,

893
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 2: I'm curious because I've done so many stories about true

894
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 2: crime stories. Right, they lighted a lot of Shore, so

895
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 2: the moment pretty much into it. I kind of know

896
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 2: how it's gonna end, because it's conventions, like you figure

897
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 2: out like he's not talking, he's obviously in the slammer

898
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. Right, So it's hard for me

899
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 2: to be surprised when you watch stuff, either from your

900
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 2: discipline as an actor or as a writer, as a

901
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 2: smart guy, do you feel like you're off in ahead

902
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 2: of the audience or do you feel like you watch

903
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 2: it like everybody else.

904
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: It depends. There's a trope in which you do a

905
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: shot of someone and if you do the shot a

906
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 1: certain way, it's lit a certain way, the angle is

907
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: a certain way. I know that's the killer. You tipped

908
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 1: it off. You did something there that you were even

909
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: unconscious about it. Am I ahead of everybody? I'm the

910
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: guy that's sitting in a theater in Chicago, I was

911
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 1: doing a film and I go see The Sixth Sense

912
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: with Bruce Willis, and I had no idea what was

913
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:07,439
Speaker 1: going on. And when the movie was over, my friend

914
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: with me goes, you didn't know what was going to happen.

915
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. I watched The Village from Shaymlan, and

916
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: I had no idea she was going to jump over

917
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: the fence. I love that movie. Bill Hurt running that

918
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 1: colony of people. And when she hops over the fence,

919
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: Ronnie Howard's daughter jumps over the fence and she's blind.

920
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 1: It's perfect and she doesn't know where she is and

921
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,439
Speaker 1: the car pulls up. I went, oh my god. Because

922
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm just not I'm into the show. I want

923
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: to enjoy it, so I don't. But if I'm going

924
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 1: to go in there and pick it apart, if I

925
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: go in there cynical, then I could probably kill it

926
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: for myself. But those two cases were something where I

927
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 1: just was so there with the movie. I loved it.

928
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: But you it's the Yankees. Are your kids' sports fans

929
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:51,239
Speaker 1: or did you go to Yankee games with them?

930
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 2: Oh? My god, they're huge.

931
00:38:52,280 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: They're huge Yankee fans. Does your wife like the Yankees

932
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 1: enough just to get buy it, just to get re

933
00:38:58,320 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 1: upped her deal.

934
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 2: We were dating. You really love the Anchus, you know,

935
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:02,919
Speaker 2: kids not so much.

936
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: You guys have the same taste and what you watch

937
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:06,600
Speaker 1: on You don't like to go to the theater.

938
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 2: No, we theater a lot when we can. I remember

939
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,240
Speaker 2: of everything, like round about all those things right right,

940
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 2: But I often can't go, so I try to.

941
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:16,959
Speaker 1: Get about movie theaters. Very few movies in the theater.

942
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 2: Well, we got a lot of screen. She gets a

943
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 2: lot of previews, so we got a lot of that.

944
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,600
Speaker 2: And that's fun because you see something like you said,

945
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 2: no setup, no idea, what it is? You don't you

946
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 2: hear a great William Shatner story. I proposed thanks to

947
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 2: William Shatner. So we're huge Star Trek fans, right, Judrenal

948
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 2: I had been together for like seven years. I hadn't proposed,

949
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 2: so I needed something good, so I asked him if

950
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 2: I if he would help me do it. So I

951
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 2: wrote this thing for him, and he said, you know,

952
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,479
Speaker 2: of all my years of saving the galaxy and boldly

953
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 2: going where no man's going before, I never got to

954
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,439
Speaker 2: do one thing. I never got to marry two crew

955
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 2: members in Love episode twenty six happened, but then they

956
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:51,399
Speaker 2: Klingon's attacked episode forty three. But recently a crew member,

957
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 2: crewmember Wantab has come to me and asked my advice.

958
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 2: And I knew that you don't have to be county the

959
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 2: enterprise by picking the obvious choices. But I knew that

960
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 2: I I didn't take the falcony scene from Roley and Juliet,

961
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:05,359
Speaker 2: or the Sons of Browning or the love proms over

962
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 2: creat A four. Instead, mister Shapiro, here's what I recommend

963
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:11,800
Speaker 2: ship's censors. In the cat you found a beautiful, lovely

964
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 2: and very patient woman. So get down on one knee,

965
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 2: set your face on stun and fire when ready. And

966
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 2: I said, when you marry me, So that works.

967
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: My last question for you, in the doggy dog business

968
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 1: of television news, what do you attribute to your longevity.

969
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 2: I think it's I've been lucky enough to work with

970
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 2: really great people, and I've tried to treat everybody pretty

971
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 2: well because I think TV, especially TV news, is a

972
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 2: team sport. You can only succeed when everybody around he succeeds, right,

973
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 2: And you're the cameraman, the talent, the writer's producers. Everybody

974
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 2: has to feel like a team and haves to feel

975
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:46,840
Speaker 2: appreciate it, and I find something really rewarding about that.

976
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 2: When it all works, it's like this magical thing, like

977
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 2: I had this like okay idea, and everybody else made

978
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 2: it better and better and better, and I love that.

979
00:40:55,920 --> 00:41:00,840
Speaker 1: My thanks to w ne ET's Neil Shapiro. This episode

980
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,839
Speaker 1: was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City. We're

981
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:09,280
Speaker 1: produced by Kathleen Brusso, Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin.

982
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Isaac Kaplan Wilner. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's

983
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 1: the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio